J Plus M
by Lionheart261
Summary: Nobody in Class 1-A knows about Jiro's meticulously crafted fanfiction about a popular American romance novel, nor the connection between how Jiro writes Julia and Mary and Jiro's own fantasies. However, one accidental glance at her laptop during a routine cleaning brings Izuku into the loop in the most awkward way possible.
1. Chapter 1

_Say what you will about the indignity of getting wet or getting mud in your shoes-when you needed it, rain was_ really _good at filling in awkward silences. In its own way, the obnoxious_ pat, pat, pat _on the windows drew her out of her own head, for once, and at no better moment, either. Right now, her head was a shitshow in a sold out theater nestled snugly at the corner of Panic and Sadness._

 _Unfortunately, the side effect of this is that, not being preoccupied with her own internal breakdown, she was left to ponder the turbulent emotions of the other girl in the room. And suddenly, her brain's encore performance of_ Julie Screwed the Pooch _was far more appealing. She couldn't possibly imagine what was going through Mary's head right now._

 _No, wait, scratch that. She could totally imagine it. She could imagine every single response she could possibly make now that she'd_ really _screwed the pooch. Now that everything was out in the open and up in the air. Now that she_ knew.

" _Julia, you're my best friend, and I'm flattered, really, but I just...don't see you that way."_

" _Julia, I...please, don't take this the wrong way, but I need some time, to...process things. Okay?"_

" _Well, I was going to tell you that me and Justin are officially dating now, but on second thought, let's talk about_ this _."_

 _She doubted the last one very much-it seemed rather uncharacteristic of Mary to say something like that-but at this point, she'd sunk back into her own head, where the cast of_ JStP _was hard at work acting out every scene, one by one, as the orchestra plays solemnly in the background._

 _She wanted to take it back. More than anything. She wanted to grab a time machine and travel back to exactly one minute and twenty-seven seconds ago, and force her past self to keep her heart stuffed tightly in her chest where it couldn't hurt anyone. Where it couldn't hurt her. Or, at least, not make things hurt any more. Her eyes bored into the floor so intensely she was half convinced it would melt underneath her feet, and she'd be able to fall right through, down into the kitchen and into the basement and punching through the ground, down down down, until she either melted in a pool of magma or came out upside down at the bottom of an ocean trench somewhere off the coast of Africa. Boiling alive, drowning, being crushed like a tin can-it was all preferable to having to look up into Mary's eyes as she drove a stake into her heart once and for all._

" _Julia."_

 _There it was. That hesitant "Julia." The moment where her hopes died and whatever would be left of that weirdly wonderful friendship she'd managed to maintain for three years would become little more than a hollow shell of its former self. She braced herself and balled up her fists ever so slightly, as if preparing to punch her own emotions._

 _For a moment, Mary was silent. For one drawn out, agonizing moment, the rain brought Julia back out of her head, while Mary tried several times to start a sentence._

" _Julia," she said again, as if she'd been re-winded like a tape recorder. "I..."_

"Jiro? What are you doing-we're going to be late!"

Hagakure's habitually loud voice cut through Jiro's introspection like a knife, and she glanced up from her laptop at the common area's clock to find that she had been staring at what she'd written so far for the last ten minutes.

"Crap! Coming!" she said, hurriedly setting her laptop onto the ottoman and gathering her backpack off of the couch as she stumbled out of the common area, Hagakure waiting patiently nearby.

"What was so important you had to retreat to the couch immediately after finishing breakfast?" Hagakure asked, prodding as she usually did on just about any subject.

"Just...typing up an email."

If Jiro could see her, she'd tell Hagakure was raising an eyebrow at her, but the invisible girl decided not to press the subject.

As Hagakure chatted on about whatever popped into her head, Jiro thought about Julia and Mary. What was she going to say? What did she want her to say? What would **she** say in that situation?

Of course, she knew the general course of how she wanted Mary to respond-that she cared for Julia right back. That Justin, no matter how hot and supposedly cool he was, didn't hold quite the same place in her heart. The problem lied in getting from Point A- _Julia Screwed the Pooch_ -to Point B- _Julia and Mary_ -in a way that makes sense and doesn't seem wildly out of character.

Jiro had to chuckle at that. Mary already made up with Justin and got together with him by the end of the book-just thinking about anyone else that way would be out of character, technically. Not that that was stopping her-nothing would convince her that that ending wasn't a major let-down. Of course, the same wasn't quite true for Julia. Jiro had seen the hints all throughout the novel, as had many others. Her crush on Mary was practically canon.

As they walked out of the dorms, however, Jiro scolded herself for allowing her mind to wander. She could think about all of this later-for now, she had to focus on her schoolwork. With that in mind, she put all thoughts of Julia and Mary aside and walked briskly to class, although she couldn't shake the feeling that she had forgotten to pack something important.

* * *

Izuku sighed as he and Bakugou began another long day of cleaning up the communal spaces, in what had become their daily routine following an ill-advised, yet perhaps well overdue, brawl between them. He walked about the common area, picking up various scraps and bits of trash from the other students' breakfast, wondering about what new and exciting things they were probably going to learn in class. Without question, he was going to be behind, and he hated himself with every second he lost.

He had been ruminating on this for quite some time when a large device caught his eye, evidently having been left open on the ottoman for a few minutes. It obviously belonged to one of the students, but not recognizing it immediately, he lightly tapped the trackpad, causing the screen to open immediately to the page it had last been on.

A quick inspection of the status icon in the bottom left corner would have revealed that this was, in fact, Jiro's laptop. However, his eyes couldn't help but be drawn to the document sitting squarely in the center of the screen. After a few seconds of letting the words on the page flow through his head, a loud noise brought him out of his enchantment.

"Oi! Deku! What is that?" Bakugou called out from the other side of the room, causing Izuku to jolt slightly.

"I think somebody left their laptop!" Izuku replied hastily, sweating nervously as he considered the ramifications of what he had just done.

Bakugou didn't seem to notice or care about Izuku's change in tone. "Do you know whose it is?"

"N-no," he answered.

Bakugou shrugged. "Just leave it there, then. We've got too much shit to clean up to worry about some idiot's missing laptop."

"A-are you sure? I could probably just take it up to their room-"

"Not if it's locked and you don't know whose it is," Bakugou replied, already walking away and muttering under his breath. "Dumbass."

Izuku gulped nervously before walking away from the couch and, with difficulty, returning to the task at hand. He had a feeling that, regardless of how awkward it may be, apologizing to...whoever it was preemptively would be better off in the long run compared to them approaching him later. Thus, he steeled himself to face the music upon his classmates' return.

* * *

Jiro half-walked, half-stumbled into the common area, exhausted by another long class day now that the second semester had gone into full swing. Her thoughts were occupied both by a longing for a late afternoon nap and the desire for all homework to be abolished forever. However, after a moment her thoughts returned to her work, and how, with another ten or twenty minutes in her room, she was certain to find the right line to keep things moving. She walked over to the couch, remembering that she had left the laptop open on the ottoman.

Then stopped when she saw that the laptop was closed.

" _What the...? I-I left it there open. Why would it-?"_ She thought as her eyes widened.

Somebody had opened it.

Of course, without her password, after a certain amount of time nobody would be able to just access it simply by opening it. " _But,"_ she reasoned, " _If they did it just a few minutes after we left..."_

Her eyes snapped onto Bakugou and Izuku, who slumped down onto the couch after having finally cleaned out every inch of the other communal spaces in the facility. By sheer coincidence, Izuku had been idly glancing towards the area while Bakugou was looking away as he chatted with Kirishima. Both teens' eyes widened upon meeting the other, before settling into quiet fury on her end and panic on his.

Suddenly, facing the music seemed a lot less appealing.

Without wasting a second, Izuku got up and walked towards the exit just as Jiro fell into step behind him, both of them virtually unnoticed as the other students chatted or retreated to their rooms. Upon reaching the door, Jiro asked, "Got somewhere to be?" as casually as she could manage under the circumstances.

"Ha ha, yeah! Uh, Aizawa-sensei wanted us to turn in an apology for our fight the other night, so..." Izuku let the answer hang, sweating profusely as Jiro's calm facade obscured the eyes he could feel burning a hole in his soul.

"Heh. Left my phone in homeroom. Guess we're heading the same way, huh?" she replied amiably.

"G-guess so!" he replied, knowing she was lying yet unsure of what else to say.

As Izuku chuckled nervously and reached for the door handle, Jiro subtly wrapped one of her jacks around his wrist, squeezing it to let him know that he had no hope of escape. Izuku gulped, making it clear that he got the message, and Jiro swiftly released him. Without another word, Izuku and Jiro walked out the door, Jiro taking the lead as Izuku could only follow behind, dreading every second that passed as it drew him closer to experiencing her wrath.

After a few minutes, the pair had looped around to the garbage disposal area, where they could not be expected to attract attention from any of the other students. Jiro crossed her arms and stared Izuku down with that same gaze of quiet fury. Whatever calm he'd managed to maintain on the outside shattered in an instant.

"So."

"I'm really sorry I was just cleaning the lounge and I saw the laptop and I didn't know whose it was so I opened it to check what came up with the login page and then it was unlocked and I saw the story and it was really good and I'm sorry I'll do whatever you want me to just please don't hurt me!" By the end of it, he held his arms out in front of his face and seemed to be on the edge of tears.

Jiro shifted her head backwards somewhat in surprise. " _Wow. I knew he was kind of a crybaby, but_ jeez." She also couldn't deny getting a kick out of how a guy who apparently kicked the shit out of Bakugou and somewhat regularly picked fights with some of the most dangerous people in Japan was **this** scared of her. Nevertheless, she felt bad.

"Whoa, dude. Relax."

Izuku lowered his arms ever so slightly as he looked into her eyes apprehensively. "Wait, so...you're **not** going to strangle me with your jacks? Or punch me in the face?"

Jiro sighed. "To be honest, I **was** thinking about punching you. Really, really hard. But, after... **that**...it just feels wrong. Like, 'kicking a puppy' levels of wrong." As Izuku began blushing profusely, her cold stare relaxed into one of extreme irritation, and Izuku allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. "I'm still really frickin pissed, though," she cautioned.

"Oh, of course!"

"Like, extremely."

"Yeah, I understand."

"You totally invaded my privacy!"

"Again, I'm really, really sorry!"

"If you tell **anyone** , it's your ass. Got it?"

"Of course! I'd never do something like that!"

"Figured, but, you know-"

"Can't be too careful. I get it."

"Right."

"Y-yeah."

"...Okay."

The two settled into a tense silence, Jiro weighing what had just occurred and Izuku still not entirely certain he wasn't going to get hurt, before Jiro thought back to the earlier confession, and found herself asking a question without thinking.

"You really thought it was good?"

Izuku was caught off guard for a second, but nodded genuinely.

"Y-yeah. I did. F-from what I read, anyway. I only had a few seconds, but like, the part that I saw at the end was-"

"Okay, stop. I get it," Jiro replied with a chuckle. If it was out in the open, she figured, she might as well have some fun with it.

"I didn't think you had such a wide vocabulary, to be quite honest."

Jiro chuckled. "Heh, yeah. Seemed to come naturally."

"I-is it an original work, or...?"

"Hm? Oh, uh, no. It's, uh...based on a book," Jiro answered sheepishly. "Didn't like the ending." " _Or the author's social media feed,"_ she added to herself. " _Yikes._ "

"Oh, so it's a fanfiction? Neat!"

Jiro couldn't stop herself from blushing a bit. "You...you don't think that's...weird?"

Surprisingly, Izuku looked back at her with a dry expression so similar to the look she got when talking to Kaminari or Sero sometimes that it was almost like looking at herself in the mirror.

"Say, you want to take a look at my hero notebooks? One of them's kinda wet and burnt, but the previous **twelve** are still in perfect condition," Izuku replied sarcastically.

Jiro had to burst into laughter at that. "Okay, okay! Point taken! Jeez!"

Izuku chuckled for a bit before continuing. "You know, I'm thinking of getting another one, actually. Writing about all of you guys, Class B, and the faculty has left me barely any room to write about all those new people from the exam."

"Wait, **all** of us?" Jiro raised an eyebrow. "I thought you just stuck to the people with interesting Quirks."

"All of your Quirks are interesting," Izuku replied before blushing slightly.

Jiro chuckled, but she could feel a slight tingling sensation along her cheeks. "Okay, now I'm really curious."

"Wait...you actually want to see them?" Izuku asked timidly, holding his arm.

"Yeah. They sound...kinda interesting," Jiro replied with a small smile. "Weird, but interesting."

"Hm..." Izuku muttered, thinking for a second before asking, "Will you let me read the rest of your fanfiction if I let you read my notebooks?"

Jiro's cheeks reddened further. "Y-you seriously want to read the rest of it?"

"Yeah! I'm already invested, and I don't even know who Julia and Mary are," Izuku replied, grinning.

Jiro found herself blushing even more, yet still managed a slight chuckle. "Only the most adorable couple in the universe."

Izuku chuckled and smiled back at her. "Well, I'll be happy to read all about it. Share it with me?"

Jiro paused for a moment. On the one hand, she hadn't intended on sharing what she was writing with anyone. It was all little more than a coping mechanism. A comforting fantasy she could lose herself in, knowing that it'd never happen in her actual life. Or, at least, that's how it had started before crossing the 30k word mark. And becoming progressively more fluffy and embarrassing with every finished chapter.

But on the other hand...he genuinely seemed interested. And he'd already proven twice over that he wasn't going to make fun of her for it, or consider her weird. He just wasn't that kind of person. Plus...hearing that it was actually good made her heart flutter for some odd reason. She didn't quite know how she'd describe it, but she knew one thing for certain: she liked it. A lot.

"Sure thing," she replied with a smile.

* * *

 _For a moment, Mary was silent. For one drawn out, agonizing moment, the rain brought Julia back out of her head, while Mary tried several times to start a sentence._

" _Julia," she said again, as if she'd been re-winded like a tape recorder. "I..."_

Jiro looked over the paragraph thoughtfully as she sat within the comforts of her dorm room. She could hear Hagakure snoring from across the hall, which told her that she was just about the only person awake in the entire building. She looked about the room idly before resting onto _Hero Analysis For the Future #13_ , left open to her entry. She picked up its slightly worn pages and examined the two pages devoted to her-the full body illustration of her in her original costume, as well as the accompanying text about her Quirk and its capabilities.

" _You know, he really is a good artist,"_ she mused as she examined the illustrations. Apparently he drew it in around ten minutes, and yet it looked remarkably well detailed for what it was. To her amusement, he even noted in the illustration next to her wrists that "She should really place speakers here. Shorter distance from jacks = less time between attacks."

Chuckling to herself, she decided to return to her work, and stared at the words for a good couple of minutes. She looked down at her phone to where Izuku had texted his suggestions, once he'd gotten a small sampling of her work. One in particular caught her eye.

 _Have her interrupt in the confession scene. Makes for a more dramatic scene that way._

"Hm..." she mused to herself for a few seconds before inspiration struck. She got it.

 _In that moment, amidst the ever-present show in her head and the sound of the raindrops, Julia made a decision:_

 _She was done bracing herself._

Jiro took a deep breath. What she was going to do next was pretty heavily non-canon(and probably a bit too mean, even for Justin), but, she reasoned, it'd work. She set to work, fully aware that she ought to finish this last chapter as soon as possible lest she wind up with only a few hours of sleep for school tomorrow.

" _Julia," she said again, as if she'd been re-winded like a tape recorder. "I..."_

" _Stop it," Julia interrupted, catching Mary off guard._

" _What-?"_

" _Stop trying to let me down easy," she said, more harshly this time._

" _I-I don't understand-"_

" _Oh, I think you understand just fine!" Julia snapped. "I think we both know you could never be interested in me! I think we both know that you've been crushing on Justin from the moment you two met! Why else would you get so upset when he started dating Jennifer? Why else would you ditch me so you could go to that stupid party at Chris' place? Why else-?!" Her voice hitched unexpectedly as the memories of the last week reared their ugly head. "Why else would you shut me out for so long after the formal?"_

 _Julia felt her eyes beginning to sting, and she hurriedly turned away before wiping her eyes with her sleeve. Mary, meanwhile, looked at her friend in complete and utter disbelief. "I...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I just-"_

" _Thought Justin deserved your time more than I did," Julia spat at her._

" _Julia, you know that's not true!"_

 _Julia took a shaky breath before angling her head to look back at Mary. "Do I? I'm not sure what I know anymore, to be quite honest."_

" _Julia, stop!"_

" _For what it's worth, I hope I'm wrong about him," Julia interjected. "You deserve someone who cares about you more than anyone else in the world." She sniffed slightly as she turned away once more. "I don't know why I ever thought that someone could be me."_

" _Julia!"_

 _Julia held her hand over the doorknob, seconds away from walking out of the room. "Give my best to Justin," she concluded bitterly._

" _HE'S GONE!"_

 _The sheer volume of Mary's cry, coupled with the sadness she could so clearly hear in her voice, stopped Julia right in her tracks. After a moment of silence, she turned around, a question on her lips._

" _It happened the night of formal," she said, barely above a whisper. "We had been having a nice time-getting to know each other better, dancing together-it all seemed so...perfect. Then...Justin took me along with a few other couples to this motel, out of town."_

" _...Oh God," Julia said, putting a hand to her mouth._

" _I-it was all happening so fast. He'd drunk, like, four beers by the time everything was sorted out. Everyone checked into their rooms, and before I could even say anything, he was..." her voice caught as that horrible night came rushing back to her. "I-I tried to tell him that it was too soon, but he just...laughed at me. Like I was an idiot for not just...letting it happen."_

" _W-what did you do?" Julia asked, concerned, as if her previous angry outburst had never occurred._

" _First thing I thought to do: get out of there as fast as I could," she replied shakily. "I tried calling my mom, but he followed me for a whole block, yelling...all kinds of horrible things." Her voice hitched before returning in a moment. "I wanted to blame it on the alcohol, but...I'd already used that excuse before."_

 _Mary's voice hitched once more, and she stopped as she let the few tears that had begun to pile up roll down her cheeks. "So, I decided I was done. I told him off, and he just...left. I haven't seen him since. As far as I'm concerned, the Justin I cared about is gone. That person calling himself Justin...is someone else entirely."_

 _Julia was left to process everything Mary had told her, unsure how exactly to offer her condolences, yet, in an admittedly ill-considered plan, she decided to try and make light of the situation. "Like, some kind of Dark Justin."_

 _Her eyes widened a second after the words escaped her, and she hurriedly moved to apologize before Mary chuckled. "Or an Evil Justin," she said with a sad smile._

 _At this, Julia had to chuckle a bit herself. "Bizarro Justin."_

 _Mary laughed. "Mirror Justin!"_

 _Before she knew it, Julia was laughing as well._

" _The Anti-Justin!"_

" _Nitsuj!"_

" _Nega-Justin!"_

" _Darth Justin!"_

" _Justin's evil twin brother, Augustus!"_

" _Pfft! How did you get 'Augustus?!'"_

" _I was going for a rhyming name! It didn't work!"_

 _By this point, both girls had fallen into a fit of laughter, timed precisely when both of them just about ran out of alternative names. As their laughter died down, silence seized them once more, and Julia carefully set herself down on the couch next to Mary._

" _Look, I...really am sorry you had to go through all of that. And for...jumping to conclusions," Julia said sincerely._

" _I know," Mary replied. "And...it's understandable. Honestly, I wanted to tell you sooner. I just...needed some time to...sort some things out."_

 _Julia began to blush slightly. "W-what kinds of 'things'?"_

 _Mary smiled, looking away shyly as her hand slowly came to rest on top of Julia's. Her face practically shifted skin tones into a deep pinkish-red._

" _O-oh," she muttered. Mary giggled slightly as Julia got progressively more flustered. "S-so...you...?" she attempted to ask before Mary chuckled again._

" _Took a week of soul-searching, but...I'm pretty sure," she replied, blushing slightly in turn._

" _Ah. Okay," Julia blurted out, still trying to process everything._

" _For the record, you're adorable when you're all flustered like this."_

 _Which, of course, only served to make her even more flustered, to Mary's endless amusement._

" _S-shut up!" Julia replied, appearing to wave her away with her arms and only further fueling Mary's laughter._

 _Although the exchange would continue for some time afterwards, truthfully, Julia was elated, perhaps more than she had ever been in her life. Somehow, against all conceivable odds, a person she liked seemed like she liked her back. It was a feeling far too complex to describe, but at the moment, attempting to do so was the furthest thing from her mind, compared to the desire to keep on feeling it, for as long as possible._

 _Once Mary's good humor had been more or less exhausted, Julia looked out the window and chuckled to herself. Right in her backyard was a large oak tree, upon which a messy signature had been scrawled and surrounded by a misshapen heart._

"J + M."

 _Julia sighed in contentedness before Mary's voice brought her out of her trance._

" _What are you looking at?"_

 _Julia chuckled._

" _Nothing important."_

* * *

Phew! Finally! This took way longer than a short fic based on a silly premise I thought up in five minutes to break out of writer's block should've taken, lmao.

Idk how exactly it came to my mind to have somebody in Class A write fanfic, but for some reason, having Jiro be that person made a weird sort of sense(especially given this one gag manga strip where she makes up a funny soap opera moment between Bakugou and Iida during the first training exercise). And from there, it just kind of evolved into a cute little Momojiro thing I wrote in my spare time, and the beginning of a small friendship between Jiro and Izuku. From my inspection of the MHA tag here, this site could use some more Momojirou. So, enjoy!

Sorry about the sheer abundance of fanfic pages for this-I know it can seem like a bunch of filler, but I wanted to use it as an opportunity to examine Jiro's writing style as well as demonstrate its value as an outlet for Jiro's feelings. Hopefully I wrote them well enough to not be too detrimental to the overall experience.

That being said, probably not going to make another chapter unless a lot of people are interested-I can see other things happening regarding Jiro and Momo, as well as Jiro and Izuku's friendship-but I feel like this is a solid enough fic on its own. So, let me know what you guys think in the reviews below, as always. Hope you guys have a fantastic night, and take care.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, have you guys seen Jiro?"

Kaminari sat leisurely in the Heights Alliance common area, charging his phone in his hand with a small current of electricity. Nearby sat Kirishima, who had been chatting with Bakugo, and Mina, who had likewise been browsing social media on her phone.

"Hm?" she said, her attention briefly split between her feed and the question before understanding dawned. "Oh. You know, now that you mention it...nah. Not since this morning, at least."

"Huh," Kaminari responded. "Weird. She's usually down to hang out, but it seems like she's gotten less and less available these last few weeks."

"Yeah. I wonder what she's been doing?"

"Well, I happen to know that-"

A third voice abruptly piped up from behind the couch, causing everyone to jump a little in surprise.

"AGH! What the-?" Kaminari began before calming down. "Oh. Hey, Hagakure. Jeez, quit scaring people like that, huh? I almost short circuited my phone!"

"Sorry! I was just practicing my stealthing," the girl replied, popping up from where she had been sitting and leaning over the end of the couch, the top worn over her invisible body now clearly visible to the others.

"What were you gonna say, Toru?" Mina asked.

"Well, as I said, I've been practicing my stealthing, and while I was over by the cafeteria yesterday, I couldn't help but notice that Kyoka was sitting at one of the tables set up outside-with **Midoriya**."

Bakugo's ears perked up ever so slightly at the mention of Izuku's name, and he and Kirishima turned around to listen in on the conversation. Mina, meanwhile, leaned in a bit, immensely interested. Kaminari simply shrugged.

"Oh. Okay, so, she's been studying with Midoriya. That explains it."

"See, that was my first thought, but the only thing either of them had on them was her laptop. Didn't look like they were hitting the books."

"Maybe he's been helping her out with that English essay Present Mic assigned us," Kirishima suggested.

"Could be...but doesn't Momo usually help her out with stuff like that?" Mina asked.

"Yeah. I mean, I'm not knocking Midoriya, but I'm pretty sure she has better marks than him in, like, **everything** ," Kaminari added.

"Which, considering how insanely good **his** marks are, is saying a lot," Mina added. Bakugo scoffed loudly.

"Maybe she's busy?" Kirishima pondered. "Or she already looked at it and Jiro wanted a second opinion."

Kaminari murmured in response. "Well, she helped me out with math just the other day, so she's definitely got time. You might be right on the other thing, though."

"I dunno, guys. I think there's something else going on here," Toru piped up. "Something **way** more interesting than just them studying."

Mina's eyes widened a bit. "Whoa. You think?" she asked, with a slight hint of anticipation in her voice.

Kaminari, however, was more puzzled than anything. "I think you're reading into this a bit, Hagakure. I mean, they're, like, the complete opposite of each other's types!"

"How do **you** know what either of their types are, Kaminari?" Mina asked pointedly.

"Yeah, you and Grape Boy thought Deku was shacking up with that psycho girl," Toru added. "In the middle of a test!"

"I didn't know about what her Quirk did, okay?! Give it a rest!" Kaminari snapped.

"He has a point, though," Kirishima interjected. "I mean, Jiro and Midoriya...seems pretty unlikely, don't you think?"

"Eh, I dunno," Toru interjected. "They're both pretty passionate about their interests, and their personalities aren't **completely** different."

"They barely talk, though," Kaminari pointed out. "Like, at all."

"That we know of," Mina countered. "We don't see either of them every second of every day."

"And come to think of it...where **is** Midoriya, anyway?" Toru asked, causing the others to pause. Mina grinned while Kaminari and Kirishima were left thinking it over. Bakugo remained completely indifferent, and seemed to be growing irritated.

"There's one way to find out," Mina replied, a bit of giddiness creeping into her tone while Toru giggled in response. Kirishima was the first to raise an objection.

"Whoa, hang on, you're actually going to go out and spy on them or something? Doesn't seem very manly of you," he said, his disapproval evident.

"We're not spying!" Mina protested. "We're just gonna go say hi, that's all."

"And if we happen to notice something interesting while engaging in pleasant conversation, well, that can't really be helped, now can it?" Toru added.

"Exactly!"

Kirishima and Kaminari looked at the two girls, unsure how exactly to respond. Bakugo, however, knew exactly what he wanted to say.

"Here's a thought: who cares?" he asked bluntly. "So Jiro and Deku are hanging out now. Who gives a shit? Are you two seriously so invested in this hypothetical romance crap that you have nothing better to do than go out to the cafeteria and snoop around under the assumption that they're secretly dating?"

Mina and Toru paused before turning to look at each other, engaging in silent deliberation. After a couple seconds of this, they both turned back towards Bakugo at the same time.

"Yes," they said in unison.

Bakugo stared at the two of them for a couple seconds, his face perfectly representing his feelings of complete and utter bewilderment at the two girls' behavior. Eventually, however, he blinked a couple times and turned away from the girls, leaning back against the couch.

"Yeah, okay, fuck it. Have fun."

"Thanks!" they both said in an incredibly cheery tone before Mina got up from the couch and eagerly followed Toru out the door. Kaminari and Kirishima watched them go for a second before shrugging to themselves.

After all, those two weren't their problem.

* * *

"So, uh, you said you needed me for something?"

Izuku sat across from Jiro at an outdoor table within the cafeteria. The green haired boy looked carefully at her, having grown significantly more comfortable around her, yet still hanging on to some residual trepidation which was par for the course as far as any of his social interaction went. Jiro had pulled out her laptop a couple minutes ago, yet hadn't done anything with it after logging in. She twirled her ear jacks around her finger, which Izuku had noticed was something she tended to do when she was nervous. The simple fact that she was nervous about this impromptu meeting made him all the more nervous, and he was left unsure as to how to proceed.

"Um, if it's about the essay, I-I thought it was great after the edits you made yesterday. I can't really think of-"

"It's not about the essay," Jiro interrupted, in a tone of voice which betrayed her anxiety about whatever she had asked him there for.

"O-oh. Okay. So, uh, what's up?" Izuku asked before leaning back in the chair ever so slightly. He put his hands together as his elbows rested upon the table, intent upon letting Jiro get to it in her own time. After another minute of jack-twirling deliberation, she took a deep breath and answered his question.

"I need your advice," she said, looking him directly in the eyes for a brief second before her gaze shifted downward, unable to maintain it out of embarrassment. Izuku nodded slowly.

"What about?" he asked, in order to prompt a fairly quick response. Jiro took another deep breath and turned around her laptop for Izuku's inspection. On it was what appeared to be a document field, with some rudimentary editing options and a menu of various other options in the corner. Izuku didn't recognize the site she was using, but he could easily gather its intent from the name: Fandom Library. Moreover, he recognized what she had put into the document field from the brief portion of it he could see: the first chapter of what she called "J + M."

"I'm thinking about publishing it," she said, sounding relieved to have gotten the words out. Izuku took a second to process what she had said before smiling a little.

"Ah, I get it now. Sure, go for it!" he said enthusiastically, causing Jiro to pause slightly.

"W-what?" she asked, slightly confused.

"You wanted to know if I thought you should publish it, right?"

"I-I mean, yeah, but-"

"Well, then the answer's yes! It's a great story, and I think a lot of people who like that book are going to love your writing!"

Jiro couldn't help but blush as Izuku looked at her with genuine excitement. Although his eyes didn't come anywhere close to the intensity they got whenever something hero-related came up, he was clearly enthusiastic, and the wide smile playing out across his features easily demonstrated this. Jiro quickly turned herself away and held up a hand in front of her face, as if the light shining off Izuku's face would render her blind.

" _Too bright!"_ she thought, in a mild panic. " _I can't look directly at it!"_ "Y-you really think so?" she asked, in an unusually timid voice. Izuku's bright smile seemed to fade as he looked at her for a moment.

"Jiro, I've been saying it's good since I first started reading it. I've told you I liked it every day for the last couple of weeks!" He seemed so genuinely confused by Jiro's continued hesitation that she couldn't help but feel a little guilty. "Don't...don't **you** think it's good?" he asked, his tone of voice killing her a little.

"Y-yeah! Yeah, I guess. I mean, I think so? I'm...ugh."

Jiro leaned back against her chair, turning her computer back around and looking at the screen for a few seconds.

"I think it's good, I just...I'm a little worried, you know? I mean, I've spent countless hours writing it, and if people don't at least read it, and it just sits there gathering dust...it'll feel like a bit of a waste, you know?" Izuku nodded, prompting her to continue. "Plus, it's...I dunno, something about it is..."

"You put a piece of your heart into it," Izuku said, surprising Jiro for a bit. She thought about it for a moment before nodding.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's...that's exactly right," she said, before she began thinking something in the corner of her mind.

"Honestly, I kinda figured that this story meant that much to you. There's just something about it that made it easy to tell."

"Uh huh, yeah, it, uh, it definitely does," she said, a little more nervously. " _Oh, God, wait, does he actually know?"_

"...Say. Do you mind if I tell you a secret?" Jiro paused, wondering what exactly Izuku was going to tell her. "It, uh...it's a bit heavy."

"Uh, okay? Sure," she said, not quite sure what to expect. Izuku took a deep breath.

"You're the first person who's read all my hero notebooks," he said simply.

Jiro was left a little confused, and couldn't help blushing slightly. "W-what?" she asked, while Izuku gave her a short nod to confirm that he was telling her the truth. "Y-you haven't shown them all to **anyone**? Todoroki, Iida? Uraraka? Not even your parents?"

Izuku shook his head. "My mom read the first few, but it became...difficult to show them to her. For a number of reasons." He paused for a moment, lost in thought, before continuing. "When I was younger, I'd show them to my classmates. Best case scenario, they'd think I was some weird hero otaku and leave me alone. Worst case scenario...well. I'm sure you noticed when you read them."

And she had. The slight tearing on some of the pages. The other pages folded over themselves in weird ways. The weird water marks which had evidently been rubbed out as best they could. Juvenile doodling on some of the drawings, with different pens than what Midoriya had used. The more...inappropriate doodles scribbled near other drawings. Truthfully, she had mulled over all of it whenever she had read one of the notebooks, but didn't want to bring any of it up to Midoriya for fear of upsetting him. Now, he was bringing it up of his own volition.

"Yeah..." Jiro said slowly, turning all of it over in her head. "Just...fuck, man. I'm so sorry."

Izuku held up a hand. "It's fine. It's...it's in the past now. Mostly," he said after a second. "The point is, I thought for a long time that my hero notebooks weren't something that anyone really wanted to see. I kept them to myself and hoped nobody noticed or cared enough about them to do anything bad to me. It...didn't always work." He shuffled a bit in his seat, evidently grappling with some bad memories. "But now...now it feels easier. I didn't feel apprehensive when I gave you those notebooks." Jiro couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as he said this, causing him to chuckle nervously. "Okay, not **that** apprehensive. And I know that it couldn't have been easy to share your work with somebody else either."

Jiro nodded slowly, blushing slightly as she did so. "It wasn't," she said. "But...it **did** feel easier than I thought it would be. It didn't feel like you'd make fun of it, or trash it mercilessly."

Izuku snapped his fingers. "And even though it felt easier, you still were left uncertain, right? You still had to take that plunge not knowing how I'd respond to it."

"...Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it."

"So, how is this situation much different?" he asked, wrapping up his point. "You don't know how people will react when you post it. You **think** they'll like it, but you can't be sure. Put simply...it's a gamble." Izuku smiled brightly once more as he looked into her eyes. "But it's a gamble you've made before, and it's worked out pretty well. Why not try your luck a second time?"

Jiro smiled a bit. "...You know what? You're right. Why **don't** I try my luck?" Reinvigorated, she promptly turned back to her computer, and typed away on it furiously. Izuku sat across from her, watching her work, before she eventually paused. "Come on," she said, gesturing for him to come closer.

"Huh?"

"Come on over here, dude!" she said with a smile. Izuku chuckled a bit and got out of his seat, moving to look over Jiro's left shoulder as she continued typing away. At last, it was time for the moment of truth, and she stood ready to click the final button that would send her work out into the world. At this moment, she hesitated, slight drops of sweat forming along her brow as she began to show residual traces of doubt. A thousand different scenarios, each one more horrible than the last, ran through her head, and for a moment she wondered why she had ever considered this in the first place. Suddenly, however, she felt, by degrees, a hand resting on her shoulder.

"Hey," Izuku said calmly, causing Jiro to turn around to look up at him. "You're okay." He smiled at her, and suddenly Jiro felt her doubts subside, at least for the moment. She smiled back at him with renewed confidence. He lifted his hand, and she turned back around, staring intently at her computer screen. At last, after one last round of internal debate, she took a deep breath, and clicked the button. The screen updated, indicating that the die had been cast. She leaned back into her seat as far as she could, letting all of her nervous tension slip away with a relieved sigh.

"I did it..." she muttered to herself, while Izuku nodded.

"How do you feel?" he asked, smiling. She smiled back at him, looking a bit tired.

"In a word...free." The two were left in silence for a moment, Jiro lost in thought while Izuku became slightly nervous, not quite sure what to say. As he looked around, unsure of himself, Jiro found herself smiling still, and got his attention. "Hey, Midoriya?" she began, causing him to turn around.

"Yeah, Jiro?"

"...Thanks," she said, smiling warmly at him and causing him to blush a fair bit.

"Oh, uh, i-it was nothing, really, uh, I just-"

"Nah, man, seriously, thanks. I finally feel like-"

"Hey, Kyoka!"

Izuku had never seen anyone close a laptop as fast as Jiro just did.

Izuku found himself taking a step back in apprehension, and he and Jiro turned around almost as one to spot Toru popping out from underneath a table ahead of theirs, her top angled in such a way that it was clear that she was looking at the pair of them. Nearby, Mina could be seen running over as fast as she could, skidding to a stop just ahead of the pair and resting her hands on the table.

"Um, h-hello, Hagakure-san. Ashido-san," Izuku said, somewhat rattled by the two girls' sudden appearance. Jiro, however, was significantly more unnerved.

"Toru, what the FUCK?!" she snapped, her mind caught in a state of turmoil. Toru was left slightly taken aback by Jiro's anger.

"S-sorry! I was just practicing my stealthing!" she said, and the earnestness in her tone caused Jiro to calm down somewhat, breathing a heavy sigh out of frustration.

"Soooo, whatcha doing?" Mina asked the two giddily. Suddenly, Jiro's anxiety returned, and she found herself blushing profusely as she attempted to answer.

"Um, uh, I-uh, I mean, **we** were just, uh-"

"Working on her essay!" Izuku chimed in quickly.

" _Thanks for the save,"_ Jiro thought to herself. Meanwhile, Toru raised an eyebrow, while Mina simply continued.

"Really?"

"Y-yeah," Jiro said, adding on. "T-there were still a few bits I wasn't quite sure on."

"Hm," Mina said simply, before smirking a bit. "It's a good thing Midoriya was free to help you out, huh?" Izuku started sweating a bit, not quite sure where Mina was going with this. He attempted to speak up to clear the air.

"Y-yup! I'm usually free to help people out if they need something, but not many people ask, so, you know, I end up just kind of...hanging out."

"Hm," Mina said again, leaving both Izuku and Jiro slightly uneasy. "Do you usually work out here, Midoriya?"

"Uh, n-not really. I usually stay in my room or go out to the grounds to train. But I figured, it's a nice spot, and Jiro likes it, so..."

"Ah," Mina said, grinning a bit more. "I gotcha."

"Say, Jiro, you mind if we read your essay?" Toru piped up, sending a shiver down her spine.

"H-huh?" she asked, before Mina caught on to Toru's plan.

"Yeah, maybe we can add our own input! Couldn't hurt, you know?"

"Uh, I dunno about that, guys..."

"Aw, come on, it'll be...okay, maybe not 'fun,' exactly, but...interesting?" Toru attempted.

"Ehhhh..." Jiro said, growing increasingly uncomfortable. Izuku unconsciously placed his hand on her shoulder and took a step forward. Mina and Toru both took pause, noting this development.

"Look, if she doesn't want to share it, you shouldn't pressure her," he said. Mina and Toru took a step back.

"You're right," Mina said. "Sorry, Jiro."

"I-it's fine," Jiro replied. "Just, I, uh...I better start on that math homework Ectoplasm assigned. I just know it's gonna take forever." She hurriedly got up from her chair, stowing away her laptop into her backpack and walking off.

"Yeah, same here," Izuku said, following after her. "See you guys later!" he called over his shoulder as the two walked off together. Mina and Toru watched them go, Toru a little confused, while Mina smirked slightly.

"Oh yeah. There's something happening here."

Meanwhile, as Izuku and Jiro walked back towards the dorms together, Izuku was left puzzling over that strange interaction.

"What was all that about?" he asked, to which Jiro sighed and slumped her shoulders in exasperation.

"I'm not sure, but if I had to guess...I'd say they think we're dating."

Izuku's entire face was beet red in an instant, and beads of sweat began lining his brow in abundance.

"H-huh?! What?! W-why would they think-I-I mean, we just started hanging out, what would possibly give them that impression anyway I don't think either of us-"

"Midoriya," Jiro interrupted, her tone completely deadpan, stopping him in his tracks. "It's okay."

"...Huh?"

"I'm well aware that I am **irresistibly** attractive," she began in an over-exaggerated, sultry tone, which only served to make Izuku more nervous. "But alas, you are not the subject of my affections! So sorry to disappoint you!"

"What?! J-Jiro, I don't-!" Izuku was interrupted again as Jiro erupted into laughter, a high pitched sound that, oddly enough, sounded almost musical.

"Kidding!" she said, still laughing a little as she playfully nudged him in the shoulder. "Come on, dude, I'm just messing with you!" Izuku slowly calmed down as he realized that Jiro was simply playing a joke on him, but he was still left somewhat annoyed as his skin returned to its normal coloration.

"You shouldn't joke about things like that," he said in a small voice. Jiro chuckled a bit.

"Sorry," she said, and the two walked in strained silence for a few moments before Jiro piped up again. "Say, what were you about to say back there anyway?"

"That I don't like you that way?" he replied, kind of confused by the question.

"Figured," she said, thinking for a few seconds. "Is there... **anyone** you like that way?" she asked, causing the boy to pause as if suddenly frozen in place. He blushed profusely once more before setting off again, quicker this time. Jiro laughed a little.

"I see. So...that's how it is," she said before taking off after him, trying to catch up.

* * *

Hours later, when most of the student body had turned in for the night, Toru sat at her computer, deciding to do one last quick check of all the sites she'd usually frequent before heading off to sleep. Her mind was still puzzled by the events of her and Mina's earlier excursion. Mina believed now more than ever that there was something going on between Jiro and Midoriya, and under ordinary circumstances, Toru would be inclined to agree. However...there was something else. Something she couldn't quite place. Something which told her that things weren't adding up in quite the way Mina suspected. With these thoughts on her mind, Toru browsed through the last site that she tended to check every day:

Fandom Library.

As she browsed through the new fics uploaded that day from her favorite series, she stumbled upon a new one by a writer she didn't recognize. Looking through the synopsis, the story appeared to be right up her alley, even featuring her second favorite ship from that particular series. Intrigued by this new writer, she decided to click on their profile, and was met with very little in the way of information. The author appeared to go by a fairly simple username: DopeFangirl. Other than that, all she could gather was that the writer was based in Japan, yet appeared to have written the synopsis and the entire fic in English.

" _Ah, geez...my English isn't all that great, and Translatr sucks when it comes to translating more than maybe a sentence. Maybe I should-"_

Suddenly, however, Toru thought of something.

' _Maybe he's been helping her out with that English essay Present Mic assigned us.'_

" _English...the whole thing's written in English,"_ she thought. Suddenly on a curious train of thought, Toru focused on another detail she had only partially registered: the username of the fic's author. " _DopeFangirl...Dope..."_ Another memory flashed through her head: her and the others walking around in Jiro's room, during their "Room King" competition. Written on the wall with what appeared to be white spray paint was the logo of a popular band which Jiro was a fan of.

" _Deep Dope! That band Jiro likes!"_ Toru thought, before a question entered her head. She looked around the story page until she found information on the time it was published: a little after noon. " _Right when we-"_ Toru thought before she remembered how Jiro had reacted upon hearing her greeting. Before even turning around to see where the voice was coming from, she had slammed her laptop shut. And then…

' _Say, Jiro, you mind if we read your essay?'_

' _H-huh?'_

' _Yeah, maybe we can add our own input! Couldn't hurt, you know?'_

' _Uh, I dunno about that, guys...'_

Toru's invisible eyes widened as she began to get a clearer picture of what was going on here. " _She_ was _hiding something-I was right! She had just published_ this, _and didn't want us to see it_! _And Midoriya must have been helping her write it, since he's always gotten great marks in English! That's what they've been doing these last few weeks!"_ However, there was still one piece missing, one nagging detail Toru couldn't quite place. She was already beginning to doubt that there was anything romantic going on between Jiro and Midoriya, but now...now she was starting to wonder if there was an answer within the story itself. She took a deep breath and looked over the synopsis very carefully.

" _Julia and Mary have been friends for almost three years-they're inseparable. Until infamous high school heartthrob Justin Matthews came along, and suddenly Julia is left to watch as Mary seems to fall harder and harder for him. This might not be so terrible, were it not for one startling new development, one even she hadn't quite begun to notice: she's falling harder and harder for Mary. Julia finds herself grappling with these new feelings for her best friend, all while doing her best to support her budding romance with Justin, knowing full well that she would never feel the same way about her."_

Toru pored over the synopsis for a second, not quite picking up on what it might indicate, until she thought of something.

" _If she wanted Midoriya to help her because of his marks in English, then..."_

In an instant, another memory came to Toru's mind, one which seemed to fill the missing piece of the puzzle instantly.

' _...doesn't_ Momo _usually help her out with stuff like that?'_

"Oh my God."

Toru stared at the screen in utter disbelief. That was it, she realized. That was why she had gotten Midoriya, a guy she'd only occasionally spoken to before, to help her, rather than her best friend. Because that same friend was the **last** person she'd want to see it.

She found herself looking up at the screen once more, and for a moment, she was tempted to see if her assumption was correct. To see what kind of story Jiro had written. Her invisible hand rested upon her mouse, which soon moved to highlight the name of the story. She took a deep breath...and moved her cursor to the corner, closing the window.

She had stepped too far into a place she clearly wasn't supposed to be already. The only thing left to do was find a way to apologize...and to make sure that nobody else stumbled upon it who wasn't supposed to.

* * *

Phew! This ended up taking a lot longer than I thought it would.

I figured I'd just write a quick thing to give this story an additional chapter and then focus on Ultimate Matchmaker, but instead, this thing took almost a week on its own. I admittedly had a lot of stuff to do getting ready to move for college, but even so, I still procrastinated a lot, and for that I apologize. Hopefully I'll be able to finish Chapter 5 of Ultimate Matchmaker before my classes start, but I'm suddenly not quite as optimistic.

Anyway, it was a little tough to figure out where I wanted this story to go from here. I knew that I wanted Jiro to ultimately publish it and for somebody to connect the dots, which is ultimately where the sideplot with Mina and Toru ends up. I think I kept everybody more or less consistent, with Jiro and Izuku getting a little more comfortable with each other due to the friendship they've built over these last few weeks, and Toru ultimately realizing where the line was when it came to her and Mina investigating Jiro's supposed secret romance. Of course, it's going to be a long, long time before I have time for the next chapter, and for that I apologize. Still, I hope getting this additional bit of content is worth it for those of you who enjoyed this story.

As always, thank you all for reading, have yourselves a fantastic day, and take care.


End file.
